


Loving Language Barriers

by dolly_milk



Series: Delving into Depictions [3]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, ポケモンマスターズ | Pokemon Masters
Genre: Character Study, Childhood Sweethearts, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, First Love, Fluff, Friendship, Friendship/Love, POV First Person, Romantic Comedy, Romantic Fluff, i dont proof read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24486409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dolly_milk/pseuds/dolly_milk
Summary: Lear's unofficial significant other, Cupid Solstice overheard how Lear took his Krookodile off his team for the league and she anticipated to talk to him about that. While Lear dreads the idea that they're going to have an argument on their differing perspectives, as Cupid values the bonds and friendship of her Pokemon while Lear finds the concept unworldly, the two seem to have a closer understanding of each other despite such differences. However, Lear still finds it uncanny that Cupid claims she can understand and converse with Pokemon, but he has to respect that. Because he does love and respect her after all. Even if he doesn't show that same patience for anyone else.
Relationships: Lyer | Lear/Original Character(s)
Series: Delving into Depictions [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657579
Kudos: 6





	Loving Language Barriers

**Author's Note:**

> First part of the story is Lear monologuing to build up context for the situation, then it gets more dialogue heavy and interactive. Skip to the end if you just want fluff. Anyways I don't proof read have fun!
> 
> On more serious notes though, I do enjoy often starting up writing this series with Lear's thought process and monologues. I feel he's the type to overthink a lot. I feel he comes off very arrogant and in-genuine to others because he lacks better communication, but because he's familiar with Cupid's tone of voice, he's more careful to think twice about what she means and he's more careful when talking about their differences. So they don't argue as much as he dreads the idea that they might... but yes I hope you enjoy!! Because I had fun writing this.

I have a thin line of patience for anyone that questions my decision making, but there is one exception. As hard as it is to be mad at Cupid, it’s just as difficult to shut down what she might want to say.

I have her as an exception to the rule not because of my affinity towards her, but because she severely lacks the ability to confront others. So I keep this as a strict reminder for myself that maybe she could grow a backbone if she could give me a piece of her mind.

And she’s the only one that knows how to properly talk without undertones of sarcasm or disrespect. No strings attached.

I need to know what’s going through her mind anyways.

As nice as it is to reminisce how long we’ve known each other, it drives me crazy how there’s missing pieces. I need to make sure I know her as well as she seems to read me. There’s subtext I need from her and with every subtle or obvious moment she feels comfortable opening up to me, I need to value that.

And there’s a lot of shit heads that don’t get the memo and take advantage of that. They lack any sense of eloquence or patience to give her time to talk, like she doesn’t have a stutter for fucksake. There’s been numerous times where people cut her off or speak overtop of her.

I couldn’t care less if that’s how they treated others- but it infuriates me that I know Cupid lacks better assertion to correct those jerkasses.

As much as I was inspired by her and adored her, I can’t fathom how she doesn’t have the ability to speak up when she clearly could. If people questioned your capabilities, your legitimacy- _you,_ then you need to tell them their wrong. Otherwise they’re going to carry these lies and misconceptions. If they’re ignorant and stubborn, backlash from them is to be expected, but shouldn’t speaking your truth give you enough peace of mind?

But I suppose that’s how _I_ think and not Cupid. She’s a lot more conscious and sensitive to these predicaments.

With everything in mind, I’ll have to test my own patience. Because today she found out after conversing with others that I replaced the Krookodile on my team. She already knows _why_ I needed to replace them: because of their incompetence and inferiority for serious battling. But that’s not going to sit with her, even if it’s true.

I don’t expect her to accept my decision, I just need her to agree to disagree. But I have to stress this enough to myself to hold my tongue, because I can’t afford to talk to her like I do the others… as difficult as this is going to be.

I don’t dread that this upcoming conversation’s about my obligation to be a ‘better trainer’, because Cupid actually knows how to articulate herself than the rest of those dunderheads. But I do dread the fact that I’m going to get caught up in my own train of thoughts and what she’ll mean to say will go over my head- I’ll snap and I’ll sound like an ass- even if all my points are valid.

I don’t know how much I can sacrifice sugar coating though- or if I’m capable of doing that because I only do this for her.

But the last thing I want to happen is to push her away.

So as expected, we’re going to meet up in the foyer in exactly… one minute or so. As she said, she’d _like_ to talk to me about it after she finished her afternoon routine and training- and she’d like to talk to that Krookodile as well.

If I have to hold my tongue I’m going to have to bite it until it bleeds because I still don’t understand what she means by that. Talking to Pokemon.. To Krookodile- clearly she’s just getting a gist at what they feel like and to not actually converse.

I always meant to talk to her about this years ago, because I asked her how intricately she was able to perform Contests with her Pokemon, but I don’t think I digested whatever explanation she gave me then and I don’t know if I’m going to understand what she’ll say now.

But this time she’s going to _confront_ me about Pokemon and her- Kalosian-Alolan perspective on ‘bonds’. So if I have to respect that she needs a back bone to talk to me, I’m going to have to prepare for the idea that she doesn’t _want to_ ‘agree-to-disagree’, because this is something important to her. And I have to word myself carefully. Because even if I’m not inherently saying anything bad, the way I word it can make me seem like a bastard.

And if I make her cry, then I think I’d shoot myself.

Standing upstairs, where the atrium of the foyer lifted to the second level, I waited for those heavy manor doors to open, when Cupid would arrive. And I’m not sure if I’m going to be greeted with her starry eyes or something sour.

I have Krookodile’s luxury ball in my palm and I catch it from the air to pass the time.

But as expected, she’s here on time and the loud doors are lifted open by the staff outside for her. As much as I want to fast forward this conversation, I do feel lighter on my feet when I see her. I haven’t seen her since the brink of morning- and she’s wearing that faux pink coat I bought her.

She looks across the foyer, scanning the room left to right trying to find me but it only takes her a second to look up the staircase to see I’m leaning over the rails. Her lips curve into a smile, and I feel a fraction of relief. She takes her coat off and one of the maids is ready to take it from her but Cupid shakes her head quickly and insists it’s alright. Folding the coat to hang over her arms, she takes one step up the stairs but I halt her.

“You stay there, I’m coming down to meet you-” I let her know and she nods.

“Don’t trip” She jokes as she watches me go down about 50 or so steps. “Well, how have you been Mr.Grumpy” She pokes me and ‘combs’ my hair to the back of my head and I lean away so she can stop that.

“Fine thank you… I’ve taken care of business as usual” I say plainly, half expecting her to bombard me on our topic at any time now. There’s no reason for us to small-talk.

“I see you finally took him out of your PC box-” Cupid starts out.

“Your point?” I raise an eyebrow, since she knows I’m not currently using it on my team.

“You know it’s not good to keep them in the PC for too long” She insists.

“Alright, I _know_ that Cupid, I’m not cruel. I have main caretakers for my Pokemon.”

“You do? I didn’t know that.”

“Isn’t it a given? I have a lot on my plate to take care of.”

“How often do they help out?” She inquired.

“When I’m not training them to battle” I answer simply, but apparently it’s a shock to her.

“Wait really? I’m surprised your team listens to you then- I mean.. Not that- I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean..?” I ask slowly, making sure my volume is correct. Because her wording is off, but she knows it’s off- so I know she means well.

“Normally Pokémon won’t listen to you in battle if they’re not close to you- and naturally one would think they’d comply to these caretakers more than uh, someone that just uses them for battle-” It looked like she bit her cheek, half expecting me to cut her off to tell her otherwise, but I didn’t. Continuing on, worried what she said might’ve offended me, she changes her tone of voice. “-BUT you do seem to make it work so I wonder if they have some respect for you… I guess the best way to find out would be to ask them...”

And then it comes to the part where I still can’t comprehend. She could ask them, and I can never be sure if she means literally or if she has the literal ability to talk to them or if she’s waiting to see how that burgundy and black beast would act.

I slowly respond with hesitation “Well… if you insist?”

I release Krookodile from their luxury ball, aiming the glowing white ray of energy to appear beside her and I, to witness their silhouette form until my Pokemon was consciously here with us.

_“Hello dear, do you remember me?”_ Cupid tilted her head and looked earnestly to the beast as if she was talking to another human being.

He tilted his head and nodded in response to Cupid- and her face softens so I’m guessing she can tell that krookodile is glad to see an old face.

I cross my arms and rest my posture, seeing how this is going to escalate- as there’s not much I should do right now without seeming like a jerk around her. It’s almost like I’m waiting for her to finish a conversation on the phone call, where the context is all one sided. Except instead of muffled noises over the phone, I’m witnessing grunting and snarls from Krookodile only for Cupid to digest it like she’s fluent in it. It’s borderline crazy, but apparently this isn’t a rarity to talk to Pokemon in other regions.

I don’t know if I could handle going somewhere like Alola.

To give Cupid at least some credit, I do appreciate how softly she talks. Though I do think it’s unfitting to talk to your own Pokemon in that kind of tone- since you’d never get any discipline out of them- I do appreciate hearing her voice just by itself.

Her voice was always delicate and melodic without even trying to be. Soothing even- and despite her travels she always had that faint but distinct Kalosian accent. The way she would pronounce her vowels or jumble words together. It’s like if cursive was vocal and she was beautiful in so many little ways like that.

I blink several times, after I catch myself fading into this train of overthinking and I hope no one witnessed I spaced out. As I came back to my surroundings I picked up on whatever Cupid was talking to Krookodile about.

_“I haven’t seen you since you were a little sandile- that’s amazing!”_ She told him and she started to pet him on that weird part of his neck or jaw. Which doesn’t make sense because all he has in rough and dusty scales- and nothing about that is pleasant. But I guess she’s just being sweet, because Cupid’s always like that.

Oddly enough Krookodile starts purring like a meowth and I didn’t think that was biologically possible for that to occur.

The conversation has been dreading for too long now and I don’t know how much more I can stand with how off-putting it is. So I had to butt in and ask Cupid “Are you _actually_ understanding anything he says or are you just pretending to have a conversation with him?”

Her face saddens and that’s an obvious tell that I worded that like shit.

“Why would I be pretending? Of course I know what he’s saying Lear…” She mumbles

“Alright if that’s the case, what have you been talking about then?”

“I asked him how he feels about you as a trainer” She said simply and continued to avert her gaze from me to focus back on petting that scaly fellow.

“Why does that matter?” I ask plainly.

“What do you mean, _why does that matter_??” She shook her head in confusion. “He has feelings and thoughts too, you know. Of course it matters-”

“Yeah but you’re treating him like a person it’s weird. Pokemon are assets and tools you utilize a part of a sport-”

She sighed deeply and bit her lip to think for a moment, but could only come up with a restless response saying “This is why you can’t communicate with them Lear.”

And I raise my eyebrow because that’s the most sass I’ve gotten from her in a long while.

“Why do I need to? They understand what I’m saying and they follow my command. The level of emotional investment you and other trainers expect everyone to have with their pokemon is unreasonable time consuming-”

“And that explains why Krookodile’s closer to his caretaker. Which to my surprise is Rachel.”

“How’d you know that!”

“He told me Lear, I’m not lying when I say I understand them.”

I pause for a second, trying to digest any logic in this but I keep catching myself in this thought process of endless confusion. And it seems Cupid’s able to read that from my expression so she continues to elaborate this nonsense.

“It’s easier said than done, but the moment you start treating your Pokemon like equals then you can talk to them. Regardless of whatever your native language is, you’ll be able to talk to them and other people’s Pokemon.” She blinked and it looked like she had a lightbulb over her little pink head. “Come to think of it…” and she turned away from me again to look at my Pokemon.

_“How does Lear talk to you, Enid?”_ And right away he answered with other gastly sounds of chittering and growling.

“What? Why are you calling Krookodile Enid?”

“Because that’s his name Lear! That’s what he said he likes to go by.”  
  
“What?” I raise my eyebrow as I fall further into confusion.

“It’s weird to me, honestly. Like why would we refer to our Pokemon by the species they are? You don’t see me calling you human all the time..” She blinked for a moment and mumbled to herself. “Come to think of it, some Pokemon _do_ refer to their trainers simply as ‘human’ unironically.”

“Alright- fine, then if I keep calling ‘Enid’ just as Krookodile then what does he refer to me by?”

I felt almost as if he was replying to me himself, because that growl felt very direct. And it seemed like something _bad_ because Cupid’s eyes widened in shock and she covered her mouth before immediately saying

“That’s not very respectful” and she frowned at him. “Who even taught you those slangs?”

“What- what slangs-” I turn my direction to Krookodile and back to Cupid rapidly. “What does he call me??” I raise my voice.

“Er… unimportant” She waves her hand in an attempt to change topics.

“I can’t believe this. See this is why I don’t see the point of needing to listen to them.”

“Maybe you should try and see how Krookodile interacts with Rachel- and I should too just to see how she raises him.”  
  
“No we’re not doing that- I see Rachel enough during work hours.” I rub the temples of my head feeling a migraine surfacing again.

“What do you have against Rachel?” Cupid poked.

“I don’t have anything against her, I just don’t see why I need to waste my ‘free time’- if that’s what I can even call it- by seeing her when I already see her on a normal schedule.”

“Alright fair enough…” She mumbles. “Okay- aside from the whole understanding your Pokemon thing do you at least reward them when they train hard and do well?”

“Their reward is winning and staying on my team.”

“Hm.” She sighed. “I’m surprised your team hasn’t lashed out at you at all... I get you’re trying to train them with tough love but I feel there could be a better balance.”

“Are you telling me how I should train my own team?”

“ _Yes-_ that’s exactly what I’m saying my love” and her tone of voice was the worst whiplash of loving irritation towards me.

She rolls her eyes, but she does give me that glance of those starry eyes again, so I know she’s just trying her best for me to see her point of view. And regardless of how unconventional everything is, she’s the only one I’m willing to give an ear to listen.

“You know.. I’ve been here for a while and you've been watching me practice but you haven’t interacted with my Pokemon team in a while actually. You remember Bean right? Why don’t I bring him out so you can see him?”

“W-which one is that again?” I stutter trying to remember what she called her team members. Sure it was one thing to disregard my own Pokemons name but she might not take it lightly that I don’t remember hers.

“My Wigglytuff- he’s the first Pokemon I ever got.” She reminded me easily, so I feel a sense of relief.

“Right of course, I knew that.” I tried to recover that smoothly.

She took her love ball from her purse, and from a beam of pink light the silhouette of a Wigglytuff formed.

Maybe I haven’t witnessed a trainer with a Wigglytuff in a while but I don’t recall them being that tall. They seemed to be at least three feet tall.

Their comically large rabbit feet hopped towards me and I was ill prepared for their weight to _crush_ my feet. Whatever they could have said, the muffled noise they made was only picked up after I felt the pain of their weight over my shoes.

“Well it sure does look like Bean thinks more highly of you than your own Pokemon-” Cupid gleamed.

I can’t believe she didn’t ask her Pokemon to stop bombarding me. In an attempt to avoid my feet being crushed any further, I tried to take steps backward, but her pink nuisance kept hopping forwards.

“Can you please ask your Wigglytuff to stop that Cupid?” I beg.

“Aw, they’re just eager- sorry about that.” She giggled. “Bean, how about you give Lear a bit of personal space?” And they complied, but barely took about two steps backwards.

They reached their stubby paws forward, but without chittering so I wondered if they knew I couldn’t understand them.

I looked back up to my freckled partner and asked her “What? What does he want?”

“He wants to properly greet you- shake his paw!”

“No? Why would I need to do that.”

“You’re a Prince aren’t you? You should know formal introductions-” She teased.

I huffed in defeat and figured Cupid’s enjoyment would outweigh the redundancy of this all. “ _Fine._ ” I sputtered and reluctantly reached out a gloved hand to ‘shake’ with her giant rabbit.

Cupid humoured me and chuckled, I suppose she found the whole thing cute. As cheesy as this looked.

Thankfully, her Wigglytuff broke the handshake to return closer to her side so that I could obtain my personal space bubble again.

The walking marshmallow seemed to attempt the same formal greeting towards my Krookodile and they refused the handshake, but whatever they were chattering about in their foreien sounds it seemed friendly enough.

Cupid reiterated for me “They’re surprised how different their perspective is on you. It makes a lot of sense though.”

“What? What are they saying exactly.” It was baffling to even question why there should be any weight to what one’s own team thought of them. But I preferred to know whatever Cupid was able to take from their conversation than standing here clueless. 

“Well naturally, Krookodile has a lot more positive things to say about Rachel since she’s the one that actually raised him. But Bean doesn’t have to er… witness your training methods if you can get what I mean-”

“Alright” I respond, knowing she has her best intentions in mind for her wording.

“-but he does know you. You always watch me train and battle and cheer me on- and I talk to him a lot, I talk to Bean about you a lot so he thinks highly of you.” She smiled and she pushed her carnation coloured hair behind her shoulders.

“You _talk_ to your Pokemon about me?” I asked, perplexed.

“Oh yeah, I always talk to my whole team, but Bean’s the best listener- and not because of his tall ears either.” She added a corny joke and patted his bunny ears, which wiggled like antennas when you moved them.

Her Wigglystuff snuggled closer to Cupid, seeming to rest his head on her, strikingly similar to the body-language of a child to their mom. Sure I’ve witnessed a plethora of trainers at this point preach about the closeness to their Pokemon, but there was something alien to me about _how_ close Cupid seemed to be with her own team. A lot of trainers claimed to have this ‘solidarity’ and ‘mutualism’ for their Pokemon, but Cupid seemed to gaze at her Pokemon like they were her own children.

Naturally this could just be how everyone acted in Alola and that rubbed off on her too, but she did always seem so endeared when looking at them. Maybe it’s just her personality. She is always caring afterall.

“You’re thinking-” Cupid caught me red handed in one of my spiels of thought.

“Sorry, I’m not normally this absent minded-” I clear my thoughts, and straighten my posture in an attempt to ground myself.

“What were you thinking about?” She chirped.

“Ah- just trying to recite everything I need to take care of for tomorrow’s schedule” I lied. “Anyways, what else does your team think about me?” I inquired.

“It’s a mixed bag, but they respect my decisions being with you so it’s mostly positive.” She gave a couple nods.

“You make it sound like you need their approval to be around me like they’re your family.”

“They are my family” she answered easily.

“Sounds… kind of counter-intuitive if you use them for battle but alright.”

“Stuff like that is why there’s mixed opinions about you-” She chuckled and started to pet her Wigglytuff while we exchanged thoughts. “Luckily for you, it’s Bean out with us right now and not Tomo- my Rapidash.”

“What’s wrong with your Rapidash?”

“Oh they’re just very overprotective and all, and within good reason. In a lot of ways they’re like you which is really comforting.”

“I’m sorry?” I tilt my head and my expression read like I needed her to repeat that again, although I’d prefer she wouldn’t. “Did you just compare my character to a Rapdiash.”

“Mhm!” Her lips grew into a cheeky smile. “Don’t worry it’s a good thing.”

“How on earth- why on earth would you say that.” I cross my arms.

“It’s a good thing Lear!” She laughed. “You’re so stubborn. And you know what? Tomo’s stubborn too-” She broke off petting Wigglytuff to come closer to me and leaned her head to my shoulder while wrapping her arms to me.

“You make no sense sometimes… you know that?” I give her a crooked smile. I admire her openness, even with her otherworldly point of view.

My gaze was focused so closely on Cupid I didn’t realize we were being attacked by Bean. He seemed to be blowing up that moveset ‘sweet kiss’ and threw it towards us. It didn’t take understanding Pokemon to get that he was trying to tease or humour us. Or something in that matter. By the time his little moveset hit our shoulders or our face, it popped like a balloon and flashed like a bunch of sparkles before fading into nothing.

But he kept throwing the sweet kisses everywhere unless the foyer was scattered with cartoonishly bright shaped hearts in every direction.

Cupid seemed to enjoy it, but I was dreading the idea of someone walking into the manor at a bad timing like this. I would hate for Sawyer and Rachel to enter the halls with how corny everything looked.

Krookodile didn’t seem to enjoy it any less than I did, because he kept dodging them and swatting them away to avoid the possibility of being ‘attacked’ since it would cause that status condition of confusion if it hit him.

“Oh Bean you’re so sweet- thank you for the smoochies” Cupid encouraged him and he spun around, he started hopping around us in a circle and I heard more muffled chittering.

“What is he saying now” I rolled my eyes. I wish I could have Cupid’s company just the two of us. It felt wrong enough knowing other people see us together with PDA but it seemed especially weird with her Pokemon encouraging it.

“He’s singing those playground songs- like the sitting in the tree one.”

“I’m surprised your Wigglytuff is _that_ positive towards me- or just having me around you.”

“Well he does know you the longest before the rest of my team. And he knows you’re a softie deep down-” Cupid stated while giving my chest a poke where my heart would be.

“I am not” I smirk and look away from her. “I’m just kind to you, you’re the only exception.

“Nope you’re a softie-” She gave me a kiss to the right of cheek- and another to my left. And multiple times that I started feeling heat rise to my face at an incredible pace.

Before we got carried away, we were interrupted by an abrasive breeze of sand. Krookodile seemed either overly annoyed with the PDA or the amount of Sweet Kiss moves filling the room or a combination of both and started using a mellowed down version of sandstorm as a way to nudge a shoulder.

“Sorry Enid- guess we forgot why we were here in the first place-” Cupid apologized, but Bean seemed to joke around Krookodile for ‘ruining’ the moment for us and threw a direct Sweet Kiss to him to induce confusion.

“Whoa whoa- okay. You’ve got to stop using movesets in the manor now.” I tell Cupid’s Wigglytuff as I return Krookodile to his pokeball to evade the effects of confusion. The last thing I want is my Pokemon stumbling around the halls to knock every piece of furniture like they were intoxicated.

He chittered something and Cupid explained “He says he’s sorry but it was funny.”

He added something afterwards and Cupid’s eyes widened momentarily. “Bean that’s not appropriate- can you bring it down a notch?” She shook her head.

“What did he say now???”

“Nothing you need to hear.” She bit her lip and I saw blush rise to her face.

He repeated in the same tone of chittering so I figured he said it twice, but louder and I’m guessing more directly to me.

“Bean! Time out-” She shook her head and huffed. “...can you please give me and Lear a moment at least?”

He seemed to smile and then tugged his ears down- I guessed he tried to mimic Cupid’s hairdo and he mirrored the way she seemed to sway her figure left and right nervously. He started giving more sweet kisses to tease before he was cut off by his trainer and returned him back to his love ball.

“...This is the one and only situation where I’m glad you couldn’t understand what he said.” She mumbled to herself and continued to shake her head slowly, still comprehending whatever sass or mockery he told her.

“...your Wigglytuff has the most personality I’ve witnessed from a Pokemon.”

She broke off her expression of embarrassment and locked her eyes with mine again to give another sweet grin. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Are all your team members like that towards you?”  
  
“Well- not as silly as Bean but they definitely have no holds barred to show me how they feel. Some Pokemon are naturally more reserved anyways- just like people.” She added and started to push my hair backwards again- as if she was petting me like her Wigglytuff.

“Hey- stop that-” I grumble and attempt to lean away from her hand again.

“No- it’s so funny. I could never get how you keep your hair up like this- see it just springs back up-” She smoothened my hair down again only for it to return back and she snickered.

“Hey! Cupid! I told you to stop- what if I kept playing with your hair, huh?” I sputtered.

“You do that anyways! Poor argument-” She said and she had the audacity to squish my nose.

“I can’t believe you just did that- what’s wrong with you!”

“It’s funny- because you're on the brink of pretend-angry and real-angry.” She laughed. “Boop.” She added before squishing my nose again.

“No! Uh uh, time out-” I dodge another attempt of her trying to mess with me and I curve myself in the right direction, extending my arms out to find the correct position to scoop her off her feet. Lifting her up bridal style as I always enjoyed doing. She broke into a giggling fit as I knew she always adored when I did this.

“How does this even stop me? I could still honk your nose you know- I still have access to your funny face.”

“ _Funny_ face what’s that supposed t-”

“Boop.” She said again before honking my nose like I’m sort of clown, for the third time now.

I started carrying her up the long flight of stairs and told her “I have everything in my power to drop you right now you know that?”

“You do but you know how bad that’s gonna look for PR? Plus you’d never do that- you wuv me..” She perked a cheeky smile with her glossy lips.

“Eugh you caught me there. Anyways, this whole conversation is over and we’re going now.”

“Going where? This house has a billion rooms-”

“We’re going… upstairs- and after that we uh, can choose any room you want.”

“Your wording is so awkward but your face says you wanna go to the bedroom.” She said endearingly.

“Yeah-” I feel heat rise to my face as her suggestive tone. “-But so I can finally crash on my bed, because I’m exhausted. You’re my alarm for five minutes okay?”

“Wow you’re really avoiding our whole conversation by a nap? That’s a little lame… but you are lacking sleep so I can’t hold that against you. But who takes a nap for five minutes.”

“I do- I still have stuff I need to do this evening you know that.”

Finally we make our way up the black marbled staircase and I drop Cupid off after I take the last step. I can’t carry her the rest of the way because I lost all stamina, I can’t tell her that however.

As I carefully let Cupid down, she still seems to stand on her tippy toes and I wonder what’s up. “Hm, well if you’re busy later today can I at least borrow Enid so I can talk to them a bit more, show them to my team?”

“No-” I say blatantly and she drops the tippy toe pose.

“What? Why not-” She gives a theatrical frown and puts a hand on her hips. “Are you going to train with them some more? I thought you’re not using Enid on your team for the league anymore…”

“No I’m not-”

“Then why can’t I borrow him? Do you not trust me” She pretended to cry out.

“No- not at all” I smile for a second “of course I trust you. I just still need your company.”

“Oh yeah? Kay what do we need to do this evening then?”

“I was going to study but I just want your presence. It’s comforting.”

“Studying?? I didn’t know you were doing post secondary..”

“What? No- this is just what I do when I don’t have other things clustering my schedule.”

“You have free time and you automatically make it not free time? That’s horrifying.”

“Hey you can’t judge me you do the exact same thing-” I point a gloved finger towards her.

“I could be your designated lip service and all you ask me to do is be your alarm clock so you can study? You’re so dorky, you know that?” She gushed.

“WH-what?” My voice stammered. What the hell did she mean by lip service. “No! I- listen Cupid I’m a very busy man- and I don’t see you- I don’t- you need to- consider-” I sigh and I feel myself jumbled in a maze of words. 

Cupid laughs and says “It was just a suggestion. But if you’re going to spend the evening studying, can we at least have our team out so I can talk to them?”

“No that won’t work then it’ll be hard to concentrate.”

“Then can I go back to my original idea and borrow Enid so I can show them to the team?”

“N-no” I answered.

“Wh- okay then what options do we have left, Lear. You’re being impossible” She pouted.

I’m left speechless but we lock eyes once again. She seems to read my face in half a second.

With a coy smirk, she grabs my hands and we rush down the hall.


End file.
